“What are you going to put in their place?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Excitement, perhaps. Novelty. The joy of never knowing what may turn up from day to day. Instead of inheriting a useless tract of land, the pleasure of making money for yourself—by your own brains and skill.”
“A successful deal on the Stock Exchange, in fact!”
He laughed. “Why not?”
“And what about an equal loss on the Stock Exchange?”
“That, dear, is rather tactless. And quite inappropriate today…What about this Egypt plan?”
“Well—”
He cut in smiling at her: “That’s settled. We’ve both always wanted to see Egypt.”
“When do you suggest?”
“Oh, next month. January’s about the best time there. We’ll enjoy the delightful society in this hotel a few weeks longer.”
“Tim,” said Mrs. Allerton reproachfully. Then she added guiltily: “I’m afraid I promised Mrs. Leech that you’d go with her to the police station. She doesn’t understand any Spanish.”
Tim made a grimace.
“About her ring? The blood-red ruby of the horse-leech’s daughter? Does she still persist in thinking it’s been stolen? I’ll go if you like, but it’s a waste of time. She’ll only get some wretched chambermaid into trouble. I distinctly saw it on her finger when she went into the sea that day. It came off in the water and she never noticed.”
“She says she is quite sure she took it off and left it on her dressing table.”
“Well, she didn’t. I saw it with my own eyes. The woman’s a fool. Any woman’s a fool who goes prancing into the sea in December, pretending the water’s quite warm just because the sun happens to be shining rather brightly at the moment. Stout women oughtn’t to be allowed to bathe anyway; they look so revolting in bathing dresses.”
Mrs. Allerton murmured, “I really feel I ought to give up bathing.”
Tim gave a shout of laughter.
“You? You can give most of the young things points and to spare.”
Mrs. Allerton sighed and said, “I wish there were a few more young people for you here.”
Tim Allerton shook his head decidedly.
“I don’t. You and I get along rather comfortably without outside distractions.”
“You’d like it if Joanna were here.”
“I wouldn’t.” His tone was unexpectedly resolute. “You’re all wrong there. Joanna amuses me, but I don’t really like her, and to have her around much gets on my nerves. I’m thankful she isn’t here. I should be quite resigned if I were never to see Joanna again.”
He added, almost below his breath, “There’s only one woman in the world I’ve got a real respect and admiration for, and I think, Mrs. Allerton, you know very well who that woman is.”
His mother blushed and looked quite confused.
Tim said gravely: “There aren’t very many really nice women in the world. You happen to be one of them.”
IX
In an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York Mrs. Robson exclaimed: “If that isn’t just too lovely! You really are the luckiest girl, Cornelia.”
Cornelia Robson flushed responsively. She was a big clumsy looking girl with brown doglike eyes.
“Oh, it will be wonderful!” she gasped.